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New Zealand’s Glenn Phillips set the social media on fire as he hit a six while batting left-handed in the ongoing Super Smash T20 League. Phillips did not just turn left-handed for a single delivery but also played cover drive, confusing the left-arm spinner Jayden Lennox in a world of match-ups. As the fast-paced T20 continues to evolve, Phillips revealed that he did not act on a whim but put into practice on the field after training as left-handed batter for a ‘couple of years’.
"I do enjoy my left-handed batting training," Phillips told ESPNCricinfo. "Obviously, I do it for multiple reasons. One, just to keep both hands and both sides of the brain working, but also just for the opportunity to, I guess, take down left-arm spin at some stage."
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How Phillips turned into ambidextrous batter
Phillips will be gearing up for the T20 World Cup 2026 with limited-overs series against India. The Indian bowling lineup has left-arm spinner Axar Patel who may see a left-handed Phillips charging at him. The Kiwi all-rounder revealed that he has been batting left-handed since he was a 10-year-old. After training, he looked at Super Smash as a stage where he could test himself as a southpaw.
"It's more of a future thing," he said, "But for the opportunity to come in a game where there's going to be a lot of left-arm off-spin bowling, I guess it sort of made sense to give it a go and bring it back to the forefront of the training leading into that game. And the fact that the opportunity came during the game to use it was quite good."
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"I've always been able to bat left-handed. It's something I've done since I was young. I was going to switch when I was about 10 years old and actually bat left-handed full-time, but I decided to stick with the right hand, as I was just a little bit too lazy to take it fully.
"And then probably around 20 years old, Super Smash-wise, I thought it was a great opportunity to be able to play left-arm spin bowling, considering every team has a left-arm orthodox. So I started working on [it] a bit more, facing pace bowlers in the nets, as well as the spinners, just to, I guess, really tune things in and work on it properly.
"And obviously it's been a few years since it's really had a chance to come out in the pipeline. But yeah, as I said, for it to actually pay off and for years of work to come out on the field was really quite cool."
When will Phillips test himself as left-hander in international cricket?
The 29-year-old is trusting his preparation to unleash the new trick on the international stage. However, he may wait to switch his stance and use it when there’s nothing left to lose.
"It's just trusting the training and understanding that I've just got to watch the ball as much as possible and I guess know that I've done the work and I've done the preparation and so there's no reason it shouldn't work. But also, I guess, I generally have used it in the situation where there's nothing left to lose. There's a couple overs left and it's now time for a bit of fun, I guess, really," he further added.
In-form Phillips chases milestone
Phillips has been in good form of late. In his previous T20 appearance, he scored an unbeaten 90 for Otago against Central Districts.
In the upcoming T20I series, Phillips will look to achieve a personal milestone. He needs 71 more runs to complete 2,000 T20I runs. He will become the fourth Kiwi batter after Martin Guptill (3,531 runs), Kane Williamson (2,575 runs) and Brendon McCullum (2,140) to achieve the feat.
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